Nowadays, it is not normal to find someone who doesn’t own some headphones. They can be the more expensive or the more affordable ones but it seems that we all need to have music with us all the time. So, do you know who invented headphones or when they were actually invented?
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The truth is that when we look at headphones, we just assume they have been always made for us to listen to our favorite songs. However, headphones were first thought of as a way of transmitting sound. So, who invented headphones?
According to the legend, the person who invented headphones was Nathaniel Baldwin, back in 1910. According to the story, Lt. Comdr. A. J. Hepburn of the U.S. Navy got a prototype of some headphones and a handwritten letter in a pink paper and written with purple ink. Nathaniel Baldwin was the author of the letter and while Lt. Comdr. A. J. Hepburn ignored his message for some time, he was very surprised when he tried the headphones.
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So, the Naby decided to order Baldwin more headphones but, at the time, he was only able to produce 10 at a time. After all, he was using his kitchen to make them.
With Baldwin, the headphones were exclusively produced for radio communication. However, a few decades later, in 1958, John C Koss introduced the SP3 Stereophones that were made for music.
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Again, the main purpose of the headphones wasn’t to listen to music but to be used as a sidebar. Nevertheless, when they were tested, people were amazed at the sound quality they had when used to listen to music. As a side note, it is quite remarkable that the Koss Corporation that is located in Milwaukee is still manufacturing headphones up until today.
While headphones were a true success, in 1979, Sony decided to release the Walkman. Up until this date, headphones were incredibly bulky and heavy. However, with the release of the Walkman, manufacturers started to produce smaller headphones that people could take with them no matter where they went. In case you don’t remember, the Walkman package included a set of MDR-3L2 headphones that were lightweight.
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But the history of headphones was not finished yet. After all, there were so many things to do. The first big event that occurred after the launch of the Walkman was the launch of the first noise reducing headphones that were made by Dr. Amar Bose back in 1989, only 10 years later. Just like many of the products we use daily, the idea just popped up to Bose when he was flying from Zurich towards home in 1978 and he was unable to listen to anything because of the cabin’s noise. So, he researched the subject and the first noise reduction headset was launched. At the time, it was designed specifically for the aviation industry.
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One of the biggest and latest innovations in what concerns to headphones occurred when Apple launched their Apple iPods that included earbuds.
